


('Till our Temporary Brilliance Turns to Ash) We Pull Apart the Darkness

by Kas_tiel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, How Do I Tag, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Italics, More - Freeform, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Protective Tony Stark, Snap Reversal, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Unbeta'd, Well - Freeform, basically not canon, we shall see
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-22 21:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kas_tiel/pseuds/Kas_tiel
Summary: His first breaths, he swears, feel like dynamite.Or: Peter is in The Space, and then he is not. Peter is alone, and then there is Tony Stark.





	('Till our Temporary Brilliance Turns to Ash) We Pull Apart the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt at venturing into this brilliant, beautiful universe by writing down what I believe could happen when Peter came back to Tony, after the Snap Reversal. No Endgame spoilers, as I haven't seen it yet (IM SO EXCITED AND SCARED I HAVE ONE DAY TO GET READY).
> 
> I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe or any associated persons/characters, or Star Wars, or the title (taken from In The Embers, Sleeping at Last. It is Beautiful) because I'm a 5' high school kid and it's all better off not in my hands.
> 
> have fun, thanks for giving me a chance:)))

_Fireworks._

_Darkness would be around him, if not for_ The Space _around him being lit up with multitudes of coruscating colors. Had he still held the ability to do so, he might have smiled; there are memories of small firework displays flashing in his head, his hand (smaller than it was at the time of The Snap) clasped tightly in someone else's, amazed gasps reverberating in the tightly packed area around him. As it stands, and because smile is something he cannot do, he just ponders._

_He cannot remember his name._

_There are syllables lining up at the back of his consciousness, yet none of them seem to fit. Frustration and panic starts to swell, but he makes himself wait (for the pivotal moment, for his name and his identity to come back to him). Eventually- similar to a candle flickering out- he loses track of what he was searching for. He wanders, instead. Sees a man he knows is now long gone hand him a box of brightly colored bricks, winking as he did so; sees a woman, the same woman who had held his hand at the park, reach out to him with tears in her eyes (and the sight brings an inexplicable desperation inside him, makes him want to utter prayers worded as Shakespeare's tragedies just to make her smile); sees another man, clad in a suit of blood-red and king's gold, ask him 'why?'. He sees the same man demand a suit made of the same blood-red back into it's maker's hand and he see the man hold good on his word as he catches him whenhe falls.  
_

_He sees himself. There is pain exploding amidst the colors in_ The Space _he resides, and there is something making (helplessly futile) attempts to build him back as he breaks into dust, into broken spiderwebs that would tangle among spires,  into inexplicably numb noth-_

 

"Peter?  _God,_ kid, you're okay."

His first breaths, he swears, feel like dynamite. All red-sticks-lit-on-both-ends and Call of Duty grenades he never really got the hang of (because there was death, so much death that reminded him of his Mom, Dad, his Uncle Ben bloody on the sidewalk next to him-) stuck in the middle of his throat and weighing down his lungs. They do not come easy, every staccato beat of his heart delaying each inhale and making his tear ducts leak- Peter (and _oh_ , his name was Peter) is a boy, he thinks he's allowed to cry this once.

"I need you to listen to me, okay, Pete? I need you to breathe. I promise, I swear, everything is gonna be okay."

 There is nothing except pure trepidation curling around him, uncontrollable in a way it hadn't been for so long. It reminds him of a building on his chest, of a ripped mask and bloody onesie.

So Peter stays wherever he is, laying broken and shaking in someone's lap, and he disregards the fact that he has spent a mere thirty seconds back and he's sobbing with anxiety a raging, blackening, acicular star splayed across across the inside of his chest. Harsh, guttural sounds escape as the dynamite in his throat finally explodes, and Peter _screams._ Memories pull at his mind, both tethering him to the present and pulling him back to The Space (where he had been nothing, nothing, nothing; no cells and no body and where the hell is he right now why the hell is he right now what the hell is goi-)

" _Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith-_ it came out in, what, Underoos? 2004?"

(-ing _on_ and- what? No, 200 _5._ Also, Underoos? No one called him Underoos.

_Underoos._

No one called him that, not anyone except-)

"Mr- Mr. Stark?" Peter's voice is a barren graveyard of disuse, and cracks twice in his question. Hopeful in only way a child can be, desperate in a way only Heroes would have ever known to be, he pays no mind to it.

A beat, then, 'Welcome back, kid. You're grounded."

Kneeling above him, clad in a suit of blood-red and a tie of king's-gold, is Tony Stark. Peter sees the gleaming gray walls behind him, recognizes the clinical-yet-professional interior of the compound, and he thinks  _May, where is May?_ and he thinks  _look. Look, me, I'm breathing and I can see and I remember and I am here.  
_

"Mr. Stark," and Peter surges forwards, folds himself in the older man's arms in a way only he is allowed and able to, "You can't- you can't let me forget, okay? It was so, so _dark_ and I was so _scared_ and it _hurt_ and I forgot _my_ name and _your_ name and _Ben's_ name and _May's_ name and god, _I want May_. Can I have May, please?"

Arms tighten around him, and he hears a shaky inhale against his hair as Tony Stark (Iron Man, the closest thing to a father he had, his savior) tethers him to sanity, "'Course, let's go see May, Kid. Let's get you home."

 _'I won't let you forget,'_ goes unsaid.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**For Tony Stark, The Reversal goes like this:**

**There are embers rearranging themselves on the ground in front of him seconds after he gets the call of confirmation, and he falls. Too reminiscent of the first time, yet different enough in all the ways that mattered, his arms hover over the breathing ( _and thank God, thank science, thank everything that made that possible_ ) Peter Parker in salvaged desperation, and he cries. He is quiet, near-silent, and unable to bring himself to do anything but listen to the ragged, choked sobs of the _child_ laying in front of him.  
**

**Tony moves, puts Peter's head onto his folded legs.**

**Listens to him breathe again.**

**Minutes pass before he finds the strength to speak, false-confidence leaking lies as he makes promises of okay-ness even after the foundation of all he has known (the finality of death and life and everything in between) had been mercifully shattered. He catches his kids as he falls into his arms, holds him tight against his chest and presses a barely-there kiss into his hair and thinks _you scare me, Peter Parker; you scare me so damn much._**

**Tony doesn't feel a trickle of unfounded jealousy trickle slowly into his heart when the kid asks for his Aunt, and he keeps his hands firmly on Peter's shoulder's when he stands only to make sure he does not stumble.**

**He does, however, feel something in his chest just combust. Inexplicable joy mixing with plain relief and love mix in a myriad of colors, and Tony thinks that, later- when Peter is better- he would like to take Peter somewhere quiet. Peter could talk, and he would listen (to his fear and to his breathing. Tony would like to hear his kid breathing). They could play ball and Marco-Polo and whatever stupid game the youth of Peter's age played and set off some burning lanterns in the sky.**

**Maybe they would set off some fireworks while they were at it, too.**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you. Thank you for reading and taking the time, and I hope that you liked it at least a Little Bit. Admittedly, this was finished in a bit of rush as I wanted to get it done before I saw the movie, so my sincerest apologies if that is obvious.
> 
> Please lemme know what you think, comments and kudos are like candy :))
> 
> Remember, to those that have seen it;Thanos Demands Your Silence.
> 
> A SMALL RANT: Robert Downey Junior became my hero, Tony Stark, when I was nearly five years old. I apparently saw it then, but I don't really remember my first time watching it. It's just something I watched, and loved so much, picking up Thor and Captain America (i love him so much, guys) and all The Avengers along the way. I love the new generation too, so much- the new phase. I am older now and can directly relate to them- especially Peter, I'm 15 and so was he- but the original. The first movies were my teddy bear, are my teddy bear, and it was always met with quirked eyebrows when I was younger but now so many other love it, too, and i couldn't be more proud. I wanna shake the Russo Brothers hands, RDJ's hand (please!), Chris Evans's hand. Everyone's hands. 
> 
> Just to tell them thank you, y'know? We should all say thank you.


End file.
